Sunday, April 2, 2000
Kirtland Bias Complaints Top Norm
Civilian employees at Kirtland Air Force Base accuse their managers of discrimination more often than Air Force civilian employees elsewhere, a Journal analysis of complaint statistics shows.
Kirtland also receives above its share of complaints from people who say they faced retaliation after filing their original discrimination claim. And the base was below the norm in being able to resolve discrimination complaints in early, informal stages from 1994 to 1999, the period examined by the Journal. Senior base officials take "corrective action" -- such as giving back pay or a promotion to an aggrieved employee -- on discrimination complaints about as often as the Air Force as a whole, according to statistics that the base and the Air Force provide to the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. Interpretations differ. Max Hernández, a local Hispanic activist and frequent critic of the base, says the statistics show Kirtland is rife with discrimination. Kirtland officials deny that, and some say Hernández and his supporters inflate the base's discrimination statistics by encouraging people to file multiple claims. "The process works," said Kirtland Director of Public Affairs Ralph Francis. "Obviously, I don't think there's a place in the United States that can say there is no discrimination. But based on the statistics, it is no better or worse at Kirtland Air Force Base than anywhere else throughout the military." Base officials point out that when an outside agency is called in to resolve a complaint, the base wins most of the time. A Pentagon official who follows discrimination issues said some figures -- notably the reprisal complaints -- could indicate Kirtland has a problem. "The reprisal issues at Kirtland are the ones that worry me," said Vincent Johnson, personnel management adviser for the Air Force. He said Kirtland's supervisors usually can justify their actions when they are accused of discrimination. "It's the reprisal issues -- managers just doing dumb stuff (against the original complainer)," he said.
In some other categories, such as complaints by Hispanics and by people with disabilities, Kirtland appears to receive far more complaints than the norm. But Kirtland has an equally greater share of Hispanic employees, and only a few people are generating dozens of disability-related complaints, base and Pentagon officials say. In general, Kirtland's share of complaints outpaces its share of civilian employees in the Air Force. From 1994 to 1999, Kirtland employed about 2,500 civilians, about 1.5 percent of the Air Force's civilian work force that is subject to EEO laws. Complaints are separated into "informal" and "formal" classes. An employee or job applicant who feels discriminated against must make an informal complaint to base EEO counselors before making a formal one. In an informal complaint, an employee works with an EEO counselor at the base, and the counselor tries to resolve the matter. A formal complaint lays out specific allegations, such as "I didn't get a promotion because I am Hispanic." Formal complaints also begin a process that may result in an investigation and hearings by outside authorities. From 1994 to 1999, the base received 648 informal complaints, or 2.2 percent of all those in the Air Force. Of those, 227 became formal complaints, or 3.8 percent of the service's total. Johnson said the Air Force's goal is to have 75 percent to 80 percent of all complaints resolved in the informal stage.
During the six years analyzed by the Journal, the Air Force resolved almost 80 percent of its complaints informally. At Kirtland, the figure is 65 percent. Johnson said it's better to resolve complaints quickly and informally because it's cheaper and "better for employee-management relations."
Hernández says the numbers -- primarily the complaints by Hispanics and women -- are a sign of institutional discrimination against Hispanics that is aimed at keeping Anglo men in authority. His group, Libertad Civil Rights Advocates, which includes some retired officers from Kirtland, has challenged the base on numerous matters and helped a group of Hispanic meat-cutters in a successful discrimination lawsuit against the base in the early 1990s. "The policy at Kirtland Air Force Base is that Hispanics will not run the base," he said. But Johnson said the rate of complaints by Hispanics is somewhat to be expected because the region has a higher Hispanic population than most bases. While the base generated 7.67 percent of the complaints of discrimination against Hispanics in the Air Force, Kirtland employs about 7 percent of the Hispanic civilians in the service.
Officials say there is no widespread discrimination at Kirtland and that the statistics are inflated by a few unhappy employees, who are clogging the system with complaints. Eva Horse, an EEO counselor at the base, pointed to one person, by example, who generated 73 separate allegations of discrimination in eight formal complaints. Another example: Kirtland generated more than 11 percent of all the complaints based on disability, both physical and mental, in the Air Force. But according to Kirtland and Pentagon officials, only three or four people annually file complaints based on disability at Kirtland, and they have generated hundreds of individual allegations, all of which are reflected in the base's statistics. Base attorney Patrick Elder said Hernández advises people to file as many complaints as they can. Hernández denied that, saying Libertad is choosy about whom it assists. "I don't know anybody who subjects themselves to this ordeal just for the hell of it," he said. Elder and Hernández regard each other as adversaries and have been at odds for years. In interviews, Hernández accused Elder of orchestrating reprisals against employees who complain, and Elder accused Hernández of seeking publicity and sending vitriolic "hate mail" to base EEO officials and others.
Johnson agrees that some of the base's statistics are inflated by Hernández, but he doesn't believe all of them are. He said the practice of filing multiple complaints is prevalent throughout the Air Force and the federal work force. Johnson also said he doesn't see a pattern of discrimination at Kirtland, noting that complaints are spread out among separate Air Force organizations, rather than concentrated under a few managers. He said he is most concerned about frequent allegations of reprisal against people who file complaints. Equal opportunity laws are designed to safeguard people in "protected categories," such as minorities and people with disabilities. They also protect those who file complaints. From 1994 to 1999, Kirtland received 304 of the 3,693 reprisal allegations filed by civilians throughout the Air Force. Johnson said some of those were validated but that he didn't know how many. He said managers could avoid allegations of retaliation by not taking discrimination complaints against them personally. "That's why (managers) make the big bucks," he said. "Folks are going to file against you. That's just the nature of being a supervisor." One measure of how often discrimination cases are validated is the number that end in corrective action, when managers close a case by giving something to the complaining employee -- such as back pay, a retroactive promotion, or higher grades applied to a performance evaluation.
During the six years studied by the Journal, Kirtland took corrective action 54 times -- about one case in 12. The base reported paying about $75,000 in back pay, settlement pay and attorney's fees to resolve complaints -- about 1.6 percent of the $4.6 million paid by the Air Force during that time. Most corrective actions result from settlements between the Air Force and the complainant. Elder described many settlements at Kirtland as an attempt to make up for a "bad management practice," not discrimination. But Johnson said a "bad management practice" directed at a minority could very well be construed as discrimination. Elder, however, pointed out that when an outside authority -- either the Defense Department's Office of Complaint Investigations or an EEOC administrative law judge -- was brought in, that authority sided with Kirtland almost all of the time. Of 63 cases handled that way between 1994 and 1999, authorities sided with the base 60 times. That roughly matches the rate for the Air Force as a whole. "We probably acted stupidly five times," said Elder, referring to the three cases the base lost, plus two earlier cases in which outside authorities found base managers discriminated against an employee. "I don't think we ever discriminated." About half the cases at Kirtland were either dismissed because a formal complaint wasn't filed properly or because the person voluntarily withdrew the complaint. The majority of people at Kirtland who take part in base surveys don't see discrimination and unfair treatment as a problem there. The surveys are required for uniformed personnel but voluntary for civilians. In a Kirtland survey covering April through September 1999, 79 percent of respondents had a favorable opinion of Kirtland when asked about discrimination issues. Thirteen percent had an unfavorable opinion, and the rest had no opinion.
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